Empathy as Crisis Containment
Toby Ziegler wields empathetic rapport to avert scandal, striding from chill doorways to fountain-side benches to console despondent poet Tabitha Fortis after her lecture collapse, probing her Banja Luka landmine trauma with wary poise before brokering a private presidential poetry performance that trades personal access for protest abandonment, humanizing political damage control amid gaffe frenzy.
Events Exemplifying This Theme
In a tense hallway exchange, C.J. intercepts Toby to report the Bartlet gaffe's fallout exploding press conference coverage from one to four networks, amplifying crisis stakes. Toby counters with his …
In Toby's office, Sam and Ainsley watch C.J. on the monitor as she lambasts the aggressive comms strategy of daily branding Ritchie stupid, insisting someone halt it since the White …
Toby enters his office, briefly compliments Ainsley's TV performance, prompting her exit and allowing private conversation with Sam. Toby reveals the Poet Laureate Tabitha has no prior activism history, quoting …
Toby hurries to the lecture hall amid the administration's gaffe crisis, spotting concerned onlookers. He urgently probes what happened to Tabitha Fortis, learning she suffered an emotional collapse near her …
Toby joins the despondent Tabitha at the fountain steps, where she unburdens her trauma from witnessing a landmine kill a boy in Banja Luka, triggering her mid-lecture breakdown reciting 'Howl.' …